Sudden Independents (5 page)

Hunter’s pain lessened immediately. He looked into her blue eyes and found his pain registering there. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

She bit her lip and nodded.

Scout laid his book aside. “Okay, Hunter. Do you feel lightheaded or have shortness of breath?”

“I’m a little dizzy and my chest feels tight.”

“Okay, that’s normal. Do you think anything else is broken or do you have pain anywhere else?”

“No. Actually, I’m starting to feel better. But Catherine isn’t.” When Scout looked up, Hunter tilted his head toward the little girl.

“Catherine,” Scout said. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Her hands felt warm and she swayed slowly back and forth. Her face eased a bit, but Hunter still saw pain in her eyes—his pain. He looked back at Scout.

Scout shrugged. He reached for Hunter’s bag that fell off the bike, dug out the water bottle and used the bag to prop up Hunter’s feet.

“We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” Scout said.

Hunter looked at his arm again, this time in fascination. Blood trickled off his elbow and pooled in the dirt.

Scout held the water bottle for Hunter as he drank, before emptying the rest over the wound, washing away the blood and grime. Hunter winced from the contact of cool water and thrashed his feet around some more at the tingling jolt. Then Scout pulled a small brown bottle from his pocket and unscrewed the cap.

“What’s that?” Hunter asked.

“It’s my bottle of iodine. It will kill all the germs just like when we put it in our bottled water. The iodine will keep the wound from getting infected.”

“Will it sting?”

“Hardly. You shouldn’t feel a thing.” Scout squeezed the bottle and red liquid shot over the open wound.

A cold, raging fire from hell singed every nerve in Hunter’s arm. Catherine winced. Hunter screamed. “Hardly my ass, you lying son of a bitch!”

Scout smiled, then gently wrapped Hunter’s arm with a clean shirt from his own backpack. “Hold your other hand here and apply some pressure until I get back,” Scout said.

Hunter, panting like a mad dog, did what Scout instructed. “Where are you going?”

“I have to find sticks to splint your arm. I won’t go far. Call out if you need me.”

Hunter watched Scout disappear into the inky darkness of the early summer evening. The stars illuminated the night, but probably not enough for speeding across the prairie. Scout would never let him forget this one. He realized that when Jimmy discovered what happened, Hunter would be lucky to leave town riding a tricycle.

Catherine’s warm hands and tiny fingers caressed his head. She smiled at him. Her eyes, brighter than the stars, contained a promise that everything would be all right.

Hunter’s worries dissolved. “Are you doing this?”

“Doing what, silly?” She scooted up on her knees and settled back down without moving her hands.

“Are you making me feel less pain, somehow?”

“I’m returning the favor. You found me, and now I’m helping you. Isn’t that what a friend is supposed to do? Plus, I hate when people suffer.”

“Yeah, but how is this possible? What are you?”

“I’m a little girl, silly.” A breeze stirred through Catherine’s hair and the candle went out. Her eyes still sparkled among the stars, even with the absence of candlelight.

Scout slipped out of the wind-lashed prairie grass and dumped a bundle of sticks with a loud clatter. He prepared a miniature teepee of twigs and then flicked open his silver Zippo, releasing the sweet smell of butane. He ignited a tiny fire and added sticks to the flames. Warm light filled their surroundings.

“Aren’t we going to leave soon?” Hunter asked.

“Not a chance. We’re going to have to make camp and wait ’til morning. You can’t ride like that, anyway.”

Scout lifted Hunter’s bike and set the kickstand, inspecting the handlebars while Hunter worried that he ruined his bike for good this time. He might be forced to ride a new bike, but he liked his Kawasaki. They had covered a lot of miles together over the past two years. The bike started on Scout’s second kick, the engine hummed and Hunter relaxed.

Scout cut the motor, restoring quiet. “We’ll see if it still rolls straight in the morning.”

They ate apples and dried meat from Scout’s backpack clustered beside the jittering flames. Scout left with the water bottles. After a while, he brought them back full and disappeared again, returning with another armload of firewood.

Scout examined two sticks before placing them away from the fire. He pulled a shirt from Hunter’s bag. “Is this clean?”

Hunter nodded. “I washed it in the Platte yesterday.”

“I guess that will have to do,” Scout said, dropping the shirt on the two sticks.

Hunter tracked Scout’s movements around until it made him dizzy. “Why are you so busy? Sit down. Take a break.”

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Scout said. “Good news is I don’t think your Kawasaki is that bad off.”

Hunter stared at him until the dramatic pause stretched too long. “And the bad news?”

“You won’t be riding for a while with a broken right arm. Can’t throttle, can’t brake, and you certainly can’t steer, but I think that last one is what caused the accident in the first place.”

Hunter understood the
real
bad news. “I’m going to be stuck in town.”

Scout’s grin flashed in the firelight. “Yeah, that sucks for everybody.”

Hunter groaned, but not from pain.

“One more piece of bad news,” Scout said. “I have to set the arm back in place.”

A shiver ran through Hunter’s body, causing a sudden urge to flee that he was totally unable to muster. “Shouldn’t we wait until we get back to town and let Luis take a look at it?”

Scout nodded. “Sure, we could wait and you could go into shock, but I know how to set a broken bone. Remember, I helped Luis last year when that tree fell on Brady’s leg.”

“Brady! You mean that lumberjack kid with the limp?”

Scout spread his hands. “I don’t want to do this anymore than you, but I’m thinking we might as well get it over with and let you start healing.”

Hunter stared into the flames of the campfire; terrified of the pain to come no matter what magic Catherine worked. A spasm triggered in his right leg. He had never experienced fear like this before, and hated it.

“It’s going to hurt.”

“Yeah,” Scout said.

“Do you have any liquor?”

Scout shook his head. “None that lasted.”

“This sucks.”

“Yeah,” Scout said and scooted closer with a grim, determined expression. “Ready?”

Hunter looked at Catherine sitting quietly with her hands resting on his brow. “I want you to let go.”

“I’ll be all right. I’m a big girl.”

“Seriously, I don’t feel right.”

“What’s all this?” Scout asked.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Hunter said.

Catherine pushed a lock of Hunter’s hair aside and smiled. “Everything will be all right, Michael. I promise. Go ahead, Scout. We’re ready.”

Hunter closed his eyes and took several deep, rapid breaths as Scout removed the makeshift bandage from his right arm. He gritted his teeth, wincing as every little movement scattered pins and needles throughout his arm and into his chest.

Scout placed his foot into Hunter’s armpit, grabbed Hunter’s wrist and pulled before anyone could change his mind.

Hunter shrieked from the excruciating agony of bones grinding back into place. Catherine cried out and crumpled to the ground and Hunter quickly followed her into unconsciousness.

J
immy loved summer with the extra hours of daylight. They made him feel like there was still time to do something—besides work.

As he and Samuel headed into town, they passed rows of hanging clothes, towels, and sheets. The launderers hustled about collecting the dried articles and the smell of clean cotton and denim filled the air. Jimmy watched the multiple colors rippling on their lines in the evening breeze like the flags of defunct countries. The metal basins on the ground were flipped over and drained.

Each kid in Independents brought their laundry to be washed on a specific day, then after supper on their assigned days they picked up their duffle bags of clean laundry and headed home to fold. In Samuel’s case, he left his clean clothes stuffed in his duffle bag.

Jimmy also loved summer’s freshly dried clothing. In the winter, they hung their laundry in one of the barns on the outskirts of town with the aid of wood-burning stoves, giving every item—and everyone—the scent of a smoky campfire.

The boys followed a swarm of barefoot kids onto the red bricks of Main Street. Most kids didn’t wear shoes during the warm months if their work allowed it. Shoes wear out. Feet get tougher. Everyone in Independents hoarded their Nikes for times of true need.

Main Street was a block of two-story buildings set together like books on a shelf. The buildings were fixed up and painted with bright colors. Kids love to paint. Apartments on the second floors were for those who missed city life. The ground floors were filled with different necessities. There was Molly’s sewing shop, where they patched holes and hemmed cuffs. Mark’s seldom-used sheriff’s office was next door, where the harshest offense so far was staying up too late. Down the line was Luis’s clinic, or rather the Band-Aid station for bumps and scrapes. Luis dealt with the flu and a couple cases of strep every month or so, a broken bone or two, but so far major surgery was not a job requirement. There was also a general store where Hunter and Scout dumped stuff they salvaged for the other kids to play with or use. And the school, where Vanessa taught the younger kids how to read and write and use arithmetic. She taught history too, for a reason Jimmy failed to understand.

Overachievers in science and math got bumped up to the honors program. Jimmy knew Independents needed more smart kids, like Luis. An intelligent kid could unravel and comprehend the resources they’d lost and those they desperately needed.

A cure for the plague would be a good start.

Four girls, all named Brittany, ran the cafeteria, appropriately called Brittany’s. The double doors stood open allowing the air to circulate inside, and for laughter and high-pitched squeals to trickle out. The aroma of butter, garlic and onion also drifted outside, arousing the hunger in Jimmy’s stomach.

By the time he and Samuel approached Brittany’s, sweat from the summer heat ran down the side of his face. The collar of his clean T-shirt was sticking to his neck. He adjusted his hat in the reflection of the large windowpane and a couple of kids made faces at him from the opposite side. He crossed his eyes and pretended to pick his nose; one of the many ways he gained respect among the little ones.

Jimmy followed Samuel into the dining hall and was greeted by the youngest Brittany.

“You guys are early,” she said, handing over blue cloth napkins wrapped around utensils.

“We would have been here sooner, but somebody wanted to change his shirt,” Samuel said.

Jimmy bumped into Samuel as if by accident.

Brittany just smiled. “Right this way.” She guided them to the large table in the center, their usual spot. Soon the table would fill with other hungry town leaders. Eating together helped the older residents of Independents keep tabs on current events in town.

Chatter swelled within the building that was already a restaurant when Samuel’s brother filled the town with abandoned children six years ago. To get things running, the electric oven was replaced with wood-burning stoves collected from empty homes. One good thing about farmers is that they never threw anything away; so salvaging items after the plague like the stoves was easy. You just needed to open the right barn to find one. Barns dotted Nebraska like pimples on a thirteen-year-old.

Food was prepared fresh; refrigeration was lost along with electricity, indoor plumbing and cable television. The Brittanys decorated the walls with lots of things that belonged in either museums or garage sales, reminding Jimmy of Chili’s and Applebee’s restaurants from long ago. Those who recalled the canned-food years with dread jokingly referred to Brittany’s as TGIF: Thank God It’s Fresh.

“What’s on the menu tonight, Brittany?” Samuel asked.